The use of herbicides to control undesirable weeds in a selective fashion is commonplace. Chemical herbicides are a large business, and involve millions of pounds of herbicide applied directly to the soil on an annual basis. An effective herbicide must not only control undesirable plants, dubbed weeds, but must also control them in a selective manner so that desired plants will grow. Preemergence herbicides refer to those which must be applied before the weed emerges from the soil.
In recent times, especially since environmental awareness has increased, many herbicides, including many preemergence herbicides have come under disfavor as chemical pollutants. This is especially true in areas of the country where these preemergence herbicides are applied in large quantities. It has now come to be recognized by many groups and associations, including the Environmental Protection Agency, that these preemergence herbicides may have an undesirable polluting effect, not only on the soil, but on the level of contamination in ground water, etc.
There is, therefore, a real and continuing need to develop natural herbicides. As used herein, natural herbicides refers to herbicides that come naturally from available growing, safe substances. One example of natural treatments for soil includes biological controls such as the addition of specific bacteria to accomplish a desired result. Another more common example of natural product application to soils would be manure as a fertilizer.
Natural herbicides would have a distinct advantage in that they would be safe materials, and materials which would not cause any concern for possible contamination of ground water from runoff or soil movement.
Accordingly, it is a primary objective of the present invention to provide a natural preemergence herbicide useful in controlling weeds such as crabgrass, smart weed, barnyard grass, etc.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a natural preemergence herbicide from corn gluten meal extracted from corn meal.
Another objective of the present invention is to provide a natural corn gluten meal preemergence herbicide which can be used as a substitute for chemical herbicides or as a supplement to chemical herbicides to reduce their concentration in the environment.
A still further objective of the present invention is to provide a method and means of preemergence control of annual grass weeds.
The method and manner of accomplishing each of the above objectives, as well as others, will become apparent from the description of the invention which follows hereinafter.